SafetyAtWorkBloghttp://safetyatworkblog.com
News, commentary and opinion on workplace safety and healthSun, 29 Mar 2015 23:23:42 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/http://1.gravatar.com/blavatar/dd88e5032828bdb0f9bac7e31383bba1?s=96&d=http%3A%2F%2Fs2.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.pngSafetyAtWorkBloghttp://safetyatworkblog.com
Union backflip on drug testing presents huge opportunity for changehttp://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/03/30/union-backflip-on-drug-testing-presents-huge-opportunity-for-change/
http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/03/30/union-backflip-on-drug-testing-presents-huge-opportunity-for-change/#commentsSun, 29 Mar 2015 21:00:56 +0000http://safetyatworkblog.com/?p=83000More…]]>In late March 2015, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) dropped its objection to drug and alcohol (D&A) testing on Australian construction sites. There seems to be several reasons for this change and the evidence for D&A testing of construction workers remains scant but the opportunity for enormous change on this public health and occupational hazard should not be missed.

Legal Misstep

Earlier this year the CFMEU represented one of its members in court on a drug-related dismissal case. The argument may have had some logic in an industrial relations (IR) sense but it remains a curious case. It indicated that the CFMEU needed to review its approach to workplace drug and alcohol issues as the media response to this action showed they were out of step.

The Distraction of Ice

One of the issues that has been mentioned repeatedly in the new D&A testing stance is the role of Ice, or crystal methamphetamine, usage. No evidence has been provided showing that the use of Ice on Australian construction sites is generating workplace safety risks. In a radio interview, CFMEU National Secretary Dave Noonan made reference to an anecdote of Ice use in relation to a tower crane on a construction site but not usage by the operator, apparently.

The CFMEU’s media release makes no mention of Ice, or crystal methamphetamine.

Alcohol

To counter this distraction it is important to remember more important hazards. In July 2013 the Australian Drug Foundation (ADF) pointed out that alcohol use

“…is responsible for:

five per cent of all Australian workplace deaths, and

up to 11 per cent of non-fatal injuries.”

Although there is no mention of the construction industry in the research paper, the ratios are concerning in a general OHS sense.

Political Timing

Recently the Andrews (Labor) Government revoked the construction industry code of practice in which, only relatively recently, mandatory drug and alcohol testing had been included. The testing requirement was a small part of the, primarily, industrial relations code but gained notice from the CFMEU’s objections and Premier Andrews’ promise to test Parliamentarians. The revocation of the Code allows the CFMEU to be seen as the instigators of a drug and alcohol testing policy rather than having such a system imposed on them.

Impairment and Safety

The media has focused on the policy backflip of the CFMEU but more specific questions should be asked of the union. Noonan said

“This is a policy that revolves around the causes of impairment in our industry that include fatigue, physical and mental health, job insecurity, injury and illness and drug and alcohol use…”

Addressing such a list of causes will require a detailed strategy beyond drug and alcohol testing. Some of these involve industrial relations issues, such as working hours, but a crucial element will be close cooperation from WorkSafe Victoria. Whether WorkSafe will be comfortable with the CFMEU setting its policy agenda, even with a government that is sympathetic to trade union, will be a test of WorkSafe leadership in a time of executive instability.

The CFMEU is likely to try to achieve its policy through industrial relations means but, if so, this is a serious miscalculation as the broader IR agendas will impede progress on what are fundamental OHS matters.

It seems the time is ripe for the Victorian Government to instigate a consultative mechanism, with defined timeframes, to develop a drug and alcohol strategy, that includes testing, across all Victorian workplaces. Premier Andrews is committed to testing Parliamentarians; the industry associations have been calling for workplace testing for a long time and drug and alcohol testing of drivers, which has an OHS context, has become an established safety measure.

Circumstances have pushed the CFMEU to change its long-held objection to D&A testing even though evidence of drug use on construction sites has not been provided. The argument of the lack of evidence has been swamped by the perception of a drug epidemic that has been fuelled by the mainstream media, a media to which politicians feel obliged to respond or support. Perception has outweighed reality and the CFMEU has accepted this sad situation.

Drug and alcohol testing of all workplaces will likely reduce potential harm, physical and psychological, BUT it must also have a well-resourced and independent research program that generates the evidence base required for similar strategies in other States and countries.

Regardless of how Victoria and the union movement reached this point of consensus on workplace D&A testing, mishandling this opportunity would be unforgivable.

]]>http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/03/30/union-backflip-on-drug-testing-presents-huge-opportunity-for-change/feed/0widnes99OHS and public health at The Coal Facehttp://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/03/23/ohs-and-public-health-at-the-coal-face/
http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/03/23/ohs-and-public-health-at-the-coal-face/#commentsMon, 23 Mar 2015 05:57:06 +0000http://safetyatworkblog.com/?p=81209More…]]>The Hazelwood mine fire has faded from the memory of most Victorians following the Parliamentary inquiry but not so for those who continue to live in the Latrobe Valley and with the health consequences of the fire. Tom Doig has written a short book on the incident and its consequences that will put pressure on the Andrews (Labor) Government to honour its election promise and reopen the inquiry.

Doig’s book, The Coal Face, summarises many of the issues raised by the inquiry by looking at a selection of personal stories from residents, neighbours and firefighters. It is a short book of just over 100 pages but it is an important reminder that the consequences of the mine fire are still being felt.

The book is not an expose a la The Killing of Karen Silkwood as it does not have the overt anger and anti-corporate sentiment but those elements are present through the application of restraint in the writing and the use of ‘cliffhangers”. For instance, early in the book, neighbours of the mine are watching the fire develop:

“From Simon’s verandah, everyone peered between the two trees on Comans Street to Hazelwood Power Station, which was illuminated by the flames. Another explosion. In the blinding flash, all Simon could see was the silhouette of two little trees.” (page 10)

The book then cuts to a story of another resident. The drama is obvious and does not need labouring. The tightness of the writing encourages the reader on.

The owner of the mine, GDF Suez, did not co-operate with Doig for the book, nor did any of the workers but the book does not suffer from this. In fact, GDF Suez’s decision making looks all the worse for not providing an alternative interpretation to that of the residents and witnesses. Doig was able to quote from several radio interviews with a company spokesperson, Trevor Rowe, very early in the fire’s development. Hindsight reveals the values of the company.

“‘Look, our experience in years gone by, Scott, is that they are very difficult fires to manage,’ Rowe replied. ‘But, as I said, this area is well away from our operating area so we don’t have that concern.'” (page 8)

The focus on the “operating area” is taken up later in the book when the emergency management focus of the company remains on the area being mined rather than the disused areas where the fire started. The clear implication of productivity over, in this case, public health.

The book is certainly not a corporate exposé of GDF Suez but Doig makes a brief reference to another incident involving toxic emissions from a GDF Suez coal power plant in Italy.

“In March 2014, an Italian judge ordered police to seize and close down the Vado Ligure coal power station in Italy’s north. The judge ruled that toxic emissions from the Vado Ligure power station, which is 50 per cent owned by GDF Suez, had caused 442 premature deaths between 2000 and 2007. ‘We do not understand the rationale for this decision,’ GDF Suez responded, before calling the health study linking emissions and deaths ‘biased’.” (page 52, link added)

An inquiry into an earlier, 2005, fire at Hazelwood made a recommendation for a risk assessment of a non-operational area:

“The report recommended that ‘a risk assessment should be undertaken on the non-operational areas [of the mine] to determine if further work is required.’ As GDF Suez Senior Mine Planner Romeo Prezioso admitted to the Hazelwood Mine Fire Inquiry, this risk assessment never happened.” (page 57)

Doig’s book does not include much on worker safety as it is traditionally perceived. No workers died. But occupational health and safety (OHS) has long since stopped being solely about worker health. As soon as OHS law began including the impact of work activities on workers and others, OHS bled into the area of public health. Sadly the OHS regulators seem to be slow in accepting the consequences of the legislative expansions and providing sufficient resources, or inter-departmental co-operation, to the issue.

However The Coal Face was never intended to be a rehash of the inquiry report and submissions. It is both an update on the current status of the inquiry (inactive) and an insight into the public health effects of the fire’s smoke on Latrobe Valley residents without the hyperbole of the tabloid media or the formality of statements to the government inquiry. There are enough hints in its mention of GDF Suez for someone to produce a detailed analysis of the corporate practices of GDF Suez AND the previous operators and owners of the Hazelwood power station following its privatisation in the 1980s and 1990s, in a similar fashion to Gideon Haigh’s book on James Hardie Industries, “Asbestos House“.

Penguin Books has published The Coal Face as part of its Penguin Specials imprint. These are short books (around 100 pages) with a retail price of $A10.00 ($A3.99 for a e-book). The Coal Face provides a terrific evening’s reading and reminds us of the attractiveness of succinct writing.

Tagged: Coal Face, GDF Suez, Tom Doig]]>http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/03/23/ohs-and-public-health-at-the-coal-face/feed/1widnes99OHS issues from over the horizonhttp://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/03/18/ohs-issues-from-over-the-horizon/
http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/03/18/ohs-issues-from-over-the-horizon/#commentsWed, 18 Mar 2015 11:07:00 +0000http://safetyatworkblog.com/?p=78998More…]]>On 18 March 2015, the Melbourne office of Herbert Smith Freehills conducted a breakfast seminar that doubled as a launch for the latest edition of the CCH Wolters Kluwer book Australian Master Work Health and Safety Guide (reviewed recently). The seminar had three of the book’s authors talking about emerging occupational health and safety (OHS) and work health and safety (WHS) issues for Australia. These included

Dr Michael Barbour said that some Australian companies have introduced formal WHS Assurance Programs and that one construction company found benefit in having its system assessed against Australian Standard AS3806-2006. This Standard for Compliance Programs seems attractive, initially, as it places OHS management systems within a broader organisational and managerial context. A Clayton Utz briefing paper on the Standard from 2006 illustrates part of the attraction:

“the values, ethics and beliefs that exist throughout an organisation and interact with the organisation’s structures and control systems to produce behavioural norms that are conducive to compliance outcomes”. (page 5)

That this addresses “values, ethics and beliefs” is a great support for those trying to build a safety culture but a safety culture is supposed to exceed compliance. The Standard also seems a better fit for those laws that have a clear delineation between compliance and non-compliance. OHS laws in Australia have no “line in the sand” of compliance. The application of reasonably practicable has expanded the line to be the fluctuating line at the beach between the waves and the high-tide mark. OHS compliance is a broad, fluctuating mark that is still being defined through the Courts.

It is also concerning that, in this world of hatred of red tape, an additional criteria of assurance could be applied. Many companies are already groaning under the weight of multiple overlapping audits that eat up time for little constructive benefit. If government wants to increase productivity and decrease red tape, it should be looking at mutual recognition of auditable elements of the various OHS, risk and quality standards, and various accreditation schemes. In this way each of the subsequent audits would add value to the management systems rather than duplicating elements and save considerable time. Application of AS3806-2006 would then only include elements not already audited.

TPP and FTA

Australia and around a dozen other Pacific rim countries have been negotiating a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) for several years but the media has only given the potential issues any attention recently following the release of documents by WikiLeaks. Understandably the media discussion focused on issues raised in these documents. But Barbour seminar flagged that the TPP should be an issue of concern for OHS professionals.

In some ways the argument reflects Australia’s, failed, OHS harmonisation strategy and the efforts of the European Union to apply common OHS rules across its member countries. But imagine trying to achieve common OHS obligations across countries in the TPP which are as disparate as the United States (US), Vietnam, Malaysia and Peru, to name a few.

“By setting commonly agreed rules and promoting transparency of new laws and regulations, the agreement will provide certainty for businesses and reduce costs and red tape for Australian exporters, service suppliers and investors.”

Part of this certainty for businesses is likely to involve a common approach to safety management. In Australia, this is controlled largely by local laws but is increasingly being assured by assessment against various Standards. The speaker pointed out that Australia has a strong relationship with the international standards developed through Britain and Europe, particularly following a formal agreement in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

One of the TPP aims is for “Regulatory Coherence, a term yet to be clearly defined. One (anonymous?) website on the TPP says:

“Because there is no [Regulatory Coherence] chapter within other trade agreements …., it is difficult to project what may be the focus of RC provisions in the TPP. Thus speculation remains as to whether RC means the harmonization of substantive regulations or instead signifies mutual recognition of regulations in the enforcement of a country’s regulations as to producers, traders, and investors of another country.”

How will this work under the TPP? Which Standard will become the default for OHS management systems or, in relation to the topic above, compliance of Assurance Programs? Would Australian companies accept US OHS Standards and, perhaps more importantly, would the US accept the safety- and risk-related Standards of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)?

“Severely restrict governments’ ability to make national laws for public health, safety and general welfare with a ‘regulatory coherence’ chapter;” (emphasis added)

OHS has not had a noticeable presence in the TPP debate but Barbour’s comments on 18 March 2015 clearly flag it as a concern. Perhaps this should be another of the OHS “big picture” issues that the OHS profession should become politicised over?

Tagged: occupational health and safety, OHS]]>http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/03/18/ohs-issues-from-over-the-horizon/feed/1widnes99seaSafety in Asia – a brief dip into OHS in Malaysiahttp://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/03/16/safety-in-asia-a-brief-dip-into-ohs-in-malaysia/
http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/03/16/safety-in-asia-a-brief-dip-into-ohs-in-malaysia/#commentsSun, 15 Mar 2015 21:16:15 +0000http://safetyatworkblog.com/?p=77499More…]]>Recently I spoke at the Safety Asia Summit in Kuala Lumpur. The summit or rather a conference had around 50 delegates and was held in a small conference room in a good hotel near the centre of the city. The delegates were from a range of industries – maritime, power generation, construction and others. I learnt that there was much that Westerners could share with Malaysian OHS professionals but that the sharing would be much quicker and more meaningful if we knew more about the Asian situation before proposing our suggestions and solutions.

Day One had a colonial feel to it as the presenters were all from overseas. This surprised me as my experience is that Australia is good at occupational health and safety but not necessarily a world leader in OHS.

I was speaking straight after lunch and had been very aware of my ignorance of Malaysia, so I structured my presentation around how to talk about OHS in a simple and clear manner using skills that most of us have grown up with. I know that the material could have been presented better (and a video malfunction is never a good look) but I was looking for interaction from the audience in a similar way that a blog article is always enhanced by the comments it received.

One of the points I made was that any speaker or communicator needs to know one’s audience yet I was one of several speakers who seemed under prepared for presenting to a non-Australian audience. Several provided a presentation that could have been given at any country but their generic-ness, although of continuing interest to me, seemed to be less relevant to some of the delegates.

Part of the reason for this was hinted at on Day Two when locals provided formal presentations and several delegates spoke to the room for 5 or 10 minutes about their own OHS experiences. The issue of providing a safe workplace for migrant workers was high on the challenges facing the Malaysian OHS professionals, an issue that hardly exists for the Australian equivalents. For instance, of the 800,000 workers in the Malaysian construction sector 69% were foreign workers. It was also estimated that 20% (2.2 million) of Malaysia’s total workforce are foreign workers with a further 2.2 million being illegal foreign workers. Without the strong union stance that Australia has on foreign workers, it is likely that Australia’s OHS profession would flounder trying to manage such a situation.

One delegate stated that another challenge is presented by the large number of Australian consultants who are parachuted in to solve problems.

Some of the comments also seemed racist to my ears, stating that one nationality was harder to train than another. It was said of one nationality that it is not that they don’t understand the language, it’s that they don’t want to comply. As contractors, these workers are paid on results, not safety. In other words, time is money and safety eats up time. Several presenters spoke of the importance of a safety culture but there appeared to be broader cultural issues that need addressing.

Several Australian presenters spoke glowingly of the work of Sidney Dekker, and justifiably so. (I note that a new edition of Dekker’s book on Human Error has just been released) The importance of looking at OHS from a fresh perspective, which Dekker advocates, was emphasised. However several delegates expressed frustration to me at the lunch break. They said that, as OHS professionals, they already knew some of the theory but were desperately looking for real examples of where the theory had been put into practice and where that practice had provided benefits to the company.

This frustration was particularly obvious when the concept of wellness programs was discussed. One speaker provided information on health promotion and awareness strategies that resulted in blank stares from many delegates. The opportunities presented by such strategies were not clear until a later speaker presented a case study where such a program was introduced to a transport company from scratch and where the costs and productivity benefits were documented rather than vaguely promised.

What the summit showed me was my ignorance of safety management in Asia. This is partly due to the isolation that Australians experience due to the geographical “curse” of location but also the knowledge stream was unjustly one way. In all of the many Australian OHS conferences I have attended, there has never been a truly Asian OHS voice. There have been many (usually Western) OHS managers from corporations operating in the region talking about their Bradley curves and maturity rating but the bits and pieces I heard from delegates of the Safety Asia Summit show that we are receiving a very skewed perspective on OHS in Asia.

The Safety Asia Summit has been operating for many years now and I think the information provided by the speakers was largely useful but some was too academic or too theoretical. Prospective speakers almost need a detailed induction into the Malaysian safety profession that includes a profile of Malaysian businesses and the workforce demographics, a briefing from the OHS regulator on its policies and operations and a description of the OHS philosophy of the Western corporate giants who operate in the South East Asian region.

In short, Australian OHS professionals have as much to learn as to share with our Asian counterparts but we have to start listening. Some of this can occur by us visiting and participating in OHS conferences in Asia; more can happen by inviting OHS professionals and regulators from the region to our own conferences. These speakers may be difficult to access and may not be inspiring but we do not always need inspiration, often we need better understanding.

Tagged: occupational health and safety, OHS]]>http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/03/16/safety-in-asia-a-brief-dip-into-ohs-in-malaysia/feed/7widnes99imageOHS professionals should be more politically activehttp://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/03/15/ohs-professionals-should-be-more-politically-active/
http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/03/15/ohs-professionals-should-be-more-politically-active/#commentsSun, 15 Mar 2015 04:32:39 +0000http://safetyatworkblog.com/?p=76636More…]]>Occupational health and safety (OHS) is inextricably linked to everyday life and everyday politics but it is treated as somehow separate, even by those who are experts in OHS. This is not the case with industrial relations which is much more grounded in the political realities.

Industrial relations has been pushed by the trade union movement that has always seen workers’ rights as a social issue. The OHS profession and its associations have been content, largely, to live within the factory fence. Until recently OHS laws related solely to the workplace and OHS professionals had the luxury of a clear demarcation for its operations.

But new OHS laws acknowledge the responsibility for the effects of work on those other than workers, and those who are neighbours to workplaces. Australian OHS professionals have been slow to embrace the social role that has been foisted on them. There seems no excuse for this.

The hearing commenced with a reference to the importation of products containing asbestos from Australia’s largest trading partner, China. A media report was quoted that said that:

“‘Consumers are being exposed to a booming trade in Chinese products laced with asbestos as border security officials admit to a limited capacity to stop contaminated goods entering Australia, potentially contributing to a fresh wave of the disease'”

Supply chain morality has become a theme of OHS and risk management lately in Australia and some of these products could present risks to workers. The apparently meagre inspection regime at the Australian borders could be seen as an inadequately resourced administrative control, if the world worked to the Hierarchy of Controls, even though some would argue the inspection regime is a flawed engineering control or one of James Reason’s pieces of cheese with a few too many holes.

Tighe later said that:

“What really does need to be put in place is a clear protocol of those who are importing products to understand their responsibilities and ensure that compliance checks take place in the country of origin.”

Such an obligation has existed for decades in Australia’s OHS laws, particularly in the context of plant and equipment, but in relation to dangerous substances as well. The continuing presence of these hazards in Australia clearly indicates that importers are ignorant, or dismissive, of their safety obligations, thereby requiring additional enforcement.

When the cost of enforcement is mentioned, Senator Eric Abetz (Australia’s Employment Minister) joins the conversation:

“If I might quickly say from a government point of view, the first responsibility clearly lies with the businesses. Be it berries, the supplier of berries has a duty not to poison the customers. That is the first duty. Similarly, with all of the other businesses that are importing what we are discussing now, matters that may contain asbestos, they have an absolute duty. We then have a random audit at the border to try to ensure compliance. This is a very concerning development. We thought we had overcome it to a certain extent with Great Wall and the motor vehicle incident. It looks as though those lessons have not been learnt by some of the other importers”

Abetz reiterates the “absolute duty” on importers but does not address the continuing non-compliance of importers with any practical measure. Later he reiterates the Government emphasis on educating importers about their duties – a strategy whose flaws have been evident for many years. One could say that the Government stance implies that it feels it has done as much as is reasonably practicable in this area.

[The berries referred to by Abetz relates to a food contamination incident involving frozen berries from China and elsewhere. I cannot help noting that if “the supplier of berries has a duty not to poison the customers”, what duty do cigarette manufacturers have?]

In some ways the conversation covers familiar topics but Xenophon asks whether the recent Free Trade Agreement with China should be held up in order to enforce compliance with international conventions on asbestos. Xenophon specifically references OHS in his suggestion to Senator Abetz, linking OHS to global trade negotiations. Abetz splutters a little and, typically, emphasises the potential benefits to Australian exporters rather than the risks presented to Australian workers but gains his composure in response to this question from Xenophon:

“Senator XENOPHON: I understand that, but is there a risk with the free trade agreement that we may see more of these products coming in more easily?

Senator Abetz: I am not going to comment whether there is a risk. What we need to ensure is that as our trading relationship with China matures we ensure that the appropriate safety acknowledgements, first by business, be it with the agricultural situation with berries, and with manufactured goods, with asbestos, and hopefully as that relationship matures the Chinese will become more responsible.”

The Government seems to continue operating on the “hope” of Chinese responsibility. Hope can often equate to inaction.

That OHS can be an element of free trade negotiations and arrangements may present a surprise to Australian OHS professionals, particularly those outside the union movement and those OHS professionals who are hostile to trade unions. Yet if the Hierarchy of Controls are to be genuinely applied as a ladder to safety, the professionals and their associations should be actively participating in these political discussions. They are not.

In one of the best books about asbestos and its immorality, “Defending the Indefensible“, written by Jock McCulloch and Geoffrey Tweedale, the authors note that:

“National asbestos bans have usually come about as a result of protracted struggle between [corporate lawyers and anti-asbestos advocates]. Opposing the use of asbestos is a growing network of trade unionists, scientists, lawyers, asbestos victims, politicians, physicians, government officials, environmentalists, and human rights activists.” (page 274)

Tagged: occupational health and safety, OHS]]>http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/03/15/ohs-professionals-should-be-more-politically-active/feed/6widnes99Dead Men Tell No Tales – Safety Storytellinghttp://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/03/11/dead-men-tell-no-tales-safety-storytelling/
http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/03/11/dead-men-tell-no-tales-safety-storytelling/#commentsTue, 10 Mar 2015 21:12:59 +0000http://safetyatworkblog.com/?p=75122More…]]>A common theme throughout presentations at the Safety Asia Summit in Kuala Lumpur was the need to communicate safety and health clearly and concisely to variety of nationalities with a variety of literacy levels. My presentation aimed at reminding the OHS professional delegates that they may already have skills that they could use in communicating safety issues to their audience or workers and contractors.

Every culture has stories. Stories have been the dominant way of teaching for centuries but we are gradually losing some of our innate storytelling skills or we do not see how they may be relevant to the workplace. OHS professionals could benefit from redeveloping those skills and also encouraging those skills in others. Stories can be a base for teaching,listening and, in OHS parlance, consultation.

The story

Quite often people in business talk about “the story” without really appreciating the complexity of storytelling, or the power of storytelling. Here are two quotes about stories that I plucked from a marketing brochure:

“The story is what drives the bond between the company and the consumer.”

“Stories can be used to communicate visions and values, to strengthen company culture, to manage the company through change and to share knowledge across the organisation.”*

There is some truth in these quotes but the purpose of the quotes undermine their value. The book these are from discusses storytelling in terms of branding and advertising, in other words the purposeful manipulation of people’s desires. For marketing and advertising is the sector where storytelling has been most effective in supporting the selling of products and the selling of ideas.

But the occupational health and safety profession and workers have their own stories to tell and often these stories are more powerful than others because they are personal and genuine, and they are painful. But first I think it is important to remind ourselves of both the simplicity and the complexity of stories.

Fable

Here is a well-known fable from the West.

“A hare one day ridiculed the short feet and slow pace of the Tortoise, who replied, laughing: “Even if you were as swift as the wind, I will beat you in a race.”

The Hare, believing the Tortoise to be an easy match, agreed to the race. They agreed that a Fox should choose the course and fix the goal.
On the day of the race the two started together. The Hare raced off, leaving the Tortoise to choke on the dust left behind. The Tortoise never stopped for a moment, but went on with a slow but steady pace straight to the end of the course.

When the Hare was out of sight of the Tortoise, he lay down by the wayside and fell fast asleep. At last he woke up, and hopped as fast as he could to the finishing line. When he got there, he saw the Tortoise had reached the goal, and was comfortably asleep.”

The most common moral for this story is that those who are slow but steady win the race.

Parable

A parable is a story that also illustrates a moral point but uses humans. The parable of the Good Samaritan is probably the easiest and most popular example. Here is one version:

A man was walking down a country road, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. One man happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, another person, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he travelled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him.

How can these stories relate to workplace safety and safety management?

Speed over value

In this modern world there are many circumstances where rushing is rewarded. This is the basis of the debate of Production over Safety. It seems that modern production criteria often seems to sacrifice the safety of the workers for the sake of continued or faster production. Often this is not imposed on the workers but social pressures encourage the workers, the units of labour some would describe them, as to value money over their own safety and health, and rewards over quality of life.

Short-term over sustainable

The speed of the Hare is more admired before the race over the slow reputation of the tortoise. OHS professionals often advocate Take 5 or Step Back before undertaking a task. This fable is saying not to rush and to be diligent and mindful in what one does.
Similarly, OHS management needs careful consideration for sustainable outcomes rather than a short-term fix, which might fix nothing in the long-term and could even increase risk in the short-term.

Immediate planning over strategy

The Hare was physically quick but the Tortoise was more cunning. It could be an illustration of brain over brawn which is a concept OHS professionals use in manual handling, in particular.

Every profession, including the safety profession, operates on a state of knowledge. Australian OHS laws consider the state of knowledge about a hazard as an important criteria for working out how to control a hazard. The tortoise seems to have had a better state of knowledge than the hare.

Duty of Care

In many ways the Good Samaritan parable is a simpler tale as it reflects a core element of much of the OHS law, the duty of care. The duty of care is a legal concept but one that reflects the morality of mercy. My OHS regulator in Victoria states that workers have a duty of care:

“… to ensure that they work in a manner that is not harmful to their own health and safety and the health and safety of others,”

A similar duty of care is required of employers. In fact this is a greater duty of care as the employer has more control over business operations than does the worker.
In the parable, the Samaritan feels that he owes a duty of care to his fellow man and applies mercy to the robbed and injured man. This reflects a core moral element of the OHS professional.

But what about those who passed? This story was intended to illustrate one particular lesson but we can build on the parable and ask additional questions. What if, after arriving at the inn, the Samaritan had met one of the two men who had ignored the injured man? Should the Samaritan have said something? It is expected that the OHS professional would speak up if they see a breach of OHS laws, or report a non-compliance to the employer and perhaps even the OHS regulator.

A simplification of the parable is to “never walk past a hazard”. I have seen this in practice on many construction sites in Australia. The importance of this simple phrase is that if you walk past a hazard, it is showing to everyone else that the hazard is an acceptable part of the work process. It is creating a culture of a tolerance of risk which is, I would argue, the opposite of the duty of care.

An even simpler interpretation of the Samaritan story could be to “speak up” or “do something”. In many workplaces this may be difficult to do but it is a core element of OHS that hazards are addressed or fixed and that may involve bringing it to the attention of your supervisor or boss, as you may need their assistance in fixing the hazard.

These stories have existed for centuries but maintain relevance because they deal with basic human values. But what about new stories? Not everyone will relate to a fluffy bunny or a man walking a country road.

All stories teach.

We need to find stories that teach our own people, our workers and our managers, that hazards exist and can be fixed.

A 2011 study by researchers at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University into story telling in the construction industry stated that

“that influence an organisation may extend this influence to society…” and

are in a format that encourage people to pass the stories on.

Here is a communication method that all people grow up with, are comfortable with and to which they are “naturally” receptive.

Near Misses/Close Calls

One of the most common measures of OHS performance is the number of deaths that happen at a workplace but much less can be learned from a dead person than from a live person. So it is more useful to talk to those workers who have survived a workplace incident, in other words, a near miss.

One such person in Australia was Theo Venter. Theo is one of the few people who has survived contact with very high voltage while working as linesman. His story is much more complex than this video shows but the video shows both the incident, through re-enactment, and the personal impact of the incident on him and his family.

What the video does not reveal is that Theo’s marriage broke down and he has had to work very hard to rebuild his relationship with his children, children he was unable to hold or hug for many many months.

If Theo had died, there would be no story.

One of the untapped sources of safety information and stories is the Near Miss incident, some call it a Near Hit, more commonly a Close Call. These are rarely investigated even though the amount of information on such an incident is far more than if the near miss had been a fatality.

The difference between a Near Miss and a fatality may be a split second but companies consider that time difference sufficient justification to not take up the learning opportunity presented by the Near Miss. This is, partly, due to nobody making the case for these investigations.

Investigating a Near Miss involves talking directly to the workers involved, getting the best information available. The investigation process shows the rest of the workforce that the management is so committed to workplace safety that they exceed expectations and compliance by investigating events that “did not hurt anyone”.

And the investigation process provides safety stories specific to the workforce and the project being worked on. This is an invaluable source of safety stories for reinforcing safe work practices but it also provides a database of potential incidents that can be shared with the senior management to reinforce the need to keep pushing OHS and encouraging effective supervision of workers.

Imagine being able to report the end of month OHS statistics to the senior managers like this:

“Here are the monthly statistics on the number incidents we have had. And here are revised statistics if we were to include all the near miss incidents.”

Which scenario would provide the company bosses with more accurate picture of workplace safety?

And do companies HAVE to investigate Near Miss incidents? Is there a legislative requirement to do so? No. But the investigation of Near Misses is not about complying with the law, it is about learning from mistakes and managing safety.

Story Structure

There are several online sources of information about the importance of storytelling, TedX presentations can be useful but here is a list of some of the elements of a good story, particularly a safety story.

You must know your audience

Have a clear message

Remove the non-essential

Include a conflict

Make the audience feel.

Theo Venter tells his story to a variety of workers but I heard him in an auditorium of construction workers. He had been briefed in detail about the demographics of his audience – age, literacy, experience, work tasks etc.

He was concise without being “too polished”. There was an authenticity about his presentation that no one else telling his story could match. It was his story and his to tell.

The primary conflict was one people face every day. Should I perform this task or should I perform this task safely? We don’t consciously think this way though. Theo’s sole aim was to undo a nut, his focus overrode his safety knowledge.

The long term impact of Theo’s presentation on the audience is not his actions that led to his injury but the effect of his injury on himself and his family. This was the emotional impact that the audience felt. He spoke about his marriage breakdown and the damaged relationship with his children but he also talked about the effect the whole incident had on his workmate who was in the bucket with him, and how all of this affected everyone in his workplace.

I mentioned the importance of first hand stories but we don’t want many of those because they all involve great pain and mental trauma. But we all have stories even though we may not be the injured party.

Another, simpler, story structure is

Exposition (What’s at risk)

Conflict

Resolution

I would describe this in the OHS context as

Hazard

Risk

Control

In Victoria, WorkSafe has often referred its basic hazard control process as

Find

Assess

Fix

Find a hazard, determine the level of risk and then eliminate the risk.

If you accept that the hazard control process matches the three-stage story structure then you can build a story from most of the safety incidents in your workplace.
Here’s an example:

“Recently, I was walking along a railway track with a railway worker, Fred. It was a gloomy, cloudy day. I noticed that a piece of railway equipment, an axle counter, looked a bit different from the axle counters I had already passed. I asked Fred what he thought as I reckoned something was missing. Fred said a piece looked like it had been broken off. He rang his supervisor who said he would send out a team with a replacement axle counter but asked for us to flag the broken one.”

It’s not a particularly exciting story and I included the weather reference for a bit of atmosphere but it is a story – a story about safety, a story based on the three-tiered story structure.

I have said that the most effective stories can come from Near Misses and people like Theo Venter, but the Hong Kong Department of Labour provides a terrific resource for stories from its Analyses if Occupational Fatalities Casebooks. Here is one taken from the 2008 Casebook:

“Three free-standing brick walls for displaying mock-up wall tiles were erected in the open area outside the site office of a building construction site. A subcontractor was awarded the contract to demolish these three walls. The deceased was employed to carry out the demolition work. Before the work commenced on the day of the accident, the principal contractor’s site agent told the deceased to erect a tubular scaffold to use as a working platform and to demolish the walls from the top down using an electric hammer. After that, the deceased was left alone to demolish the walls. Just before the accident occurred, a worker employed by another subcontractor happened to walk past the scene. He saw the deceased undermining the foot of one of the walls with an electric concrete breaker. A few seconds later, he heard a loud “bang”. He turned around and found the brick wall collapsed and the deceased trapped by two large shattered pieces of the wall. The deceased was sent to hospital for treatment but passed away on the same day.”

These are the five lessons identified:

Brick removal begins from the top layer downwards when demolishing walls

Work is carried out layer by layer, with each layer not larger than 300mm

Suitable working platforms with guardrails and toe-boards are provided for workers engaged in brick wall demolition.

Erection of the working platform is done under the supervision of a competent person.

Adequate supervision is exercised to ensure the safety and health of workers at work.

Reasonable steps are taken to ensure that workers engaged in brick wall demolition make full and proper use of suitable eye protectors.

It is more likely that the audience will remember the story rather than the lessons. Even if the details of the story fade over time, the teller will remember sufficient for the story to form the basis of a safety discussion.

The Casebooks are filled with stories from a variety of industries.

Myths

Another type of story is the Myth but over time, the word Myth has come to describe something that is untrue. In the OHS context there is a lot of effort given to the busting of myths, particularly after a campaign by the United Kingdom’s Health and Safety Executive. The newspapers had been misrepresenting OHS issues for several years, to such an extent that OHS was becoming a joke. The HSE decided to investigate claims of ridiculous OHS reasons and have found hundreds of them to be inaccurate or, as they call them, myths.

The Myth Busters Challenge Panel is now up to 350 findings on myths, instances where OHS has been unjustly used to stop an activity. Number 350 is a report about a nightclub that has banned selfie sticks

“Issue

A media story reported that a nightclub had become the first in Britain to ban selfie sticks (the mobile phone accessory) over health and safety fears after seeing a surge in people bringing them along on nights out.

Panel opinion

The panel believe that it is entirely reasonable to ban the use of selfie sticks because of the potential to be a nuisance in crowded venues. It is unfortunate this one venue felt the need to add weight to a reasonable decision by quoting “health and safety” when there are no specific rules which apply in such a case.”

For those who are familiar with the Hans Christian Anderson tale of The Emperor’s New Clothes, there is a parallel with the Myth Busters Challenge Panel.

Language

As I grow older, there are increasing demands for me to edit documents to make them easier to read. This has come from the realisation of many academics that the excellent work they do is failing to reach those who can implement their research findings and affect change. There are historical structural reasons for this, primarily the obligation to publish research in journals that have a limited readership and to write research in an academic manner rather than in one that clearly communicates. Partly this situation is a remainder from academics writing for academics but in the world of workplace safety, information needs to be communicated into practice.

This point comes back to one of the story structure points of knowing the audience. I don’t believe this absolutely but one can argue that research without practice is a pointless or selfish exercise. Those researching in areas of occupational health and safety are particularly committed to reducing or preventing harm yet their research has existed in an academic world of restricted circulation of ideas.

One of the most important benefits of stories or rather storytelling is that stories use a language of clarity and simplicity. As soon as many people hear the phrase “Once Upon A Time” they know what to expect and rules of understanding are unconsciously applied.

I think it would be impossible to tell a story in the language that many of us use in our reports to our managers. Business clichés and jargon would seem absurd. In some ways the reports we write are written for the audience, the audience we know, our managers but our managers have expectations of what they want to hear and how they want to hear it. (In many cases our reports are expected to be seen by the legal department and lawyers. There is no surer way to complicate a story that having lawyers involved) Our reports do not necessarily include clarity but it is what the boss expects.

The challenge in OHS at the moment is communicating complex ideas in the simplest of ways WITHOUT sacrificing meaning. It’s a struggle that will continue beyond my lifetime.

Evidence

Analyses of the application of storytelling in workplaces, particularly in the area of OHS is rare. Stories of the effects of workplace deaths are often compiled but these are, usually, written as part of the grieving process and from a desire to establish a memorial to the dead.

These stories exist for important and very personal reasons but they are rarely communicated through to workplaces and workers. These books contain many stories about the failure of workplace safety systems and illustrate important lessons. It is as if each of the families of the workers whose deaths are recorded in the [Hong Kong] books have told their own stories. These stories provided the social and family impacts of a worker’s death, a perspective that is rarely discussed.

In the Foreword to one particular book “till death us do part” by Elizabeth Horvath Mobayad, John Bottomley writes that the stories of the relatives of dead workers:

“…are an ongoing reminder that our most enduring myth is a lie. Our culture declares that hard work is the means to wealth, or well-being, and personal happiness. But in these accounts you will see that it is the hard workers who are killed. The truth of the matter is that people are killed by their work. And so to protect the myth that underpins our society’s view of the path to happiness, industrial deaths are swept under our collective carpet. The dead are blamed for their own deaths! We turn away from the bereaved and ignore them so we can continue to believe the cultural myths about economic and personal progress.”

It is worth ending an article on storytelling with one of the most pertinent fables to the OHS professional, one that was focussed on in the research paper about the construction industry mentioned earlier.

“A dispute once arose between the North wind and the Sun as to which was the stronger of the two. Seeing a traveller on his way, they agreed to try which the sooner could get his cloak off him. The North Wind began, and sent a furious blast, which, at the onset, nearly tore the cloak from its fastenings; but the traveller, seizing the garment with a firm grip, held it round his body so tightly that the Wind spent his remaining force in vain. The Sun, dispelling the clouds that had gathered, then darted his most sultry beams on the traveller’s head. Growing faint with the heat, the man flung off his cloak, and ran for protection to the nearest shade.”

The moral of this fable is that “Gentleness and kind persuasion win where force and bluster fail.”

Surely this is a storybook a lesson for how to manage occupational health and safety in all of our workplaces.

]]>http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/03/11/dead-men-tell-no-tales-safety-storytelling/feed/1widnes99Network Rail’s wellbeing programhttp://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/03/10/network-rails-wellbeing-program/
http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/03/10/network-rails-wellbeing-program/#commentsTue, 10 Mar 2015 05:33:03 +0000http://safetyatworkblog.com/?p=75087More…]]>At the recent Safety Asia Summit in Kuala Lumpur, there were several presentation illustrating the importance and the application of wellbeing programs as part of a broad health and safety strategy. One speaker was Chris Jones, the Health and Wellness Strategy Head for Network Rail.

Chris started a wellness strategy in Network Rail from scratch less than three years ago. Significantly an integral part of the strategy was to measure the effect of the strategy, a practice that should be an automatic inclusion with any contracts and the introduction of a new strategy.

SafetyAtWorkBlog was invited to attend and speak at the summit and had the chance to ask Chris Jones about some of the issues raised in his presentation.

CJ: There were several factors that converged for this; our regulator had developed their first plan for health within the rail industry and this focused the Board on the fact that they needed to address it as a wider strategic issue. The Director of Safety and Sustainable Development (who I was recruited by) was an advocate of health and wellbeing within organisations and he felt strongly that he wanted the business to have a clear approach to this issue; and the Board had several new members who came to Network Rail with new ideas, one of which was the need for a more proactive approach to health and wellbeing.

SAWB: Was there a requirement for the measuring of performance from the Board, or was that self-imposed as part of the program?

CJ: It was largely self-imposed but one of the commitments we made in the strategy, and which the Board signed up to, was that we would take an evidence-based approach and a measurement of performance was integral to that.

SAWB: Your program has a 10-year length. Were you required to commit to stay for the length of the program. Some programs are centered around “champions”. How have you structured the wellbeing program to allow for continuance after your departure?

CJ: No, I haven’t been required to commit to the length of the strategy. I have worked to establish a structure that would allow the strategy to continue without me – we have a clear strategy with quantified targets, we have a road map covering the 10 years, we have a governance structure covering health and wellbeing, and we have identified accountability for health and wellbeing throughout the organisation so that it is becoming ‘how the business operates’ rather than being short term initiatives that are driven by the personality of one person.

SAWB: What was the take up rate for the dental and other medical services you offered workers?

CJ: I don’t have these figures unfortunately. However, up take of the executive medical assessments has increased from 12% (2012/13) to 74% (2013/14) and compliance with occupational health surveillance programmes has increased from 24% (2012/13) to 72% (2014/15).

SAWB: There is a lot of online resources on your site. Did this method of communication “fit” the demographics of your worker – predominantly white British males? My experience is that middle-aged men in the rail sector respond best to personal, almost one-on-one, conversations on safety and wellbeing. Was this your experience?

CJ: We have developed a range of health materials that can be viewed online or could be delivered via tool box talks. Many of our people do respond best to personal conversations so we are developing the skills of our leaders and line managers to be able to have conversations about wellbeing; we’ve also implemented training in some routes to upskill peer support networks so more people feel able to hold conversations about health and wellbeing.

SAWB: Is the Network Rail wellbeing program part of a general cultural move on wellbeing throughout the UK?

CJ: Yes, there had been a general increase in the focus on wellbeing within the UK. However, I still believe that few companies have defined what ‘wellbeing’ means to them, the measures and targets they will be focusing on, or have a clear strategy that provides the long term vision and approach they will take.

SAWB: Network Rail has a good percentage of apprentices (I assume they are young). Is the apprentices’ acceptance of the program different from those older workers?

CJ: There are certainly differences in the way that differently aged employees view health and wellbeing – as an example, younger employees in our business are more likely than older employees to say that their health and wellbeing is their responsibility (older employees are much less likely to feel that their long term health and wellbeing is there personal responsibility).

SAWB: What level of involvement do you give to the families of workers?

CJ: We offer support to our employees’ families through our Employee Assistance Programme, but we haven’t yet involved them to the degree that we would like to.

SAWB: Network Rail has wellbeing separate from Safety. Has this been confusing for workers or did they already spilt the two approaches?

CJ: It doesn’t seem to have been confusing – I think there is a natural understanding that wellbeing is different to safety; employees often view safety as being associated with immediate issues/incidents, whereas wellbeing is more personal and addresses long term individual health.

SAWB: How did Network Rail’s safety personnel react to the introduction of a wellbeing strategy structurally separate to OHS?

CJ: Health and safety are still intimately linked in our organisation, so whilst there is a separate strategy, much of the actions still involve our wider safety personnel and they are active champions and critical components of what we are attempting to achieve.

]]>http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/03/10/network-rails-wellbeing-program/feed/0widnes99WorkSafe Victoria heads rollhttp://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/03/08/worksafe-victoria-heads-roll/
http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/03/08/worksafe-victoria-heads-roll/#commentsSun, 08 Mar 2015 06:01:11 +0000http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/03/08/worksafe-victoria-heads-roll/More…]]>Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has spoken publicly about the removal of the CEO and Chair of WorkSafe Victoria describing them as liars and incompetent. As Jon Faine pointed out in the radio interview, the Premier has established a high level of accountability. Hopefully this results in an increased diligence on OHS matters by government departments and authorities.

The Industrial Relations Minister in the Andrews Government, Robin Scott, was a regular critic of WorkSafe’s operations and decisions while in Opposition and it is no surprise that he went hard on the CEO, Denise Cosgrove, at least.

This has come about in the early stages of the Mackenzie Review into WorkSafe Victoria. Given that the review covers Cosgrove’s time in the position, her departure introduces a complication. It provides an opportunity to scapegoat Cosgrove for WorkSafe’s indecision and supposed waywardness but no CEO works in isolation and Mackenzie is unlikely to work in this way. Of course, the Victorian Government could use the scapegoat option but the review is far from over.

The departure of the Chair, David Krasnostein, is perhaps more curious as his public profile has been non-existent.

The Government wants to restore its confidence in WorkSafe Victoria and clearly its actions in such a short term in office – unbranding back to WorkSafe, the Mackenzie Review and the departure of two executives – indicate this is a priority. But these actions must also restore the public’s confidence in the safety regulator. The public confidence is less fragile than the government’s and WorkSafe still retains a high public regard because of the services it provides even though it has been shaken by WorkSafe’s lower profile, particularly, during Cosgrove’s time.

The Government needs to provide sufficient resources to WorkSafe for it increase its prosecutorial duties. This used to be a badge of honour for WorkSafe with the Executive Director reinforcing the deterrence effect of a successful prosecution by speaking in front of the Court buildings after success.

The Government also needs to resource the media team in WorkSafe back to its prior levels. The lack of media activity by WorkSafe has been poor but this is to be expected when the media team was culled back to around two people and without providing long term conracts.

The visibility of any govenment regulator is very important for its own purposes but also for those industries and organisations that feed off that visibility. The OHS regulator’s role is important but when taken within the context of the OHS sector on a State and National level, it is vital. Victoria is in a period when the whole OHS sector needs a shake up in order to regain the national prominence it once had.

]]>http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/03/08/worksafe-victoria-heads-roll/feed/2widnes99New analysis of deaths at workhttp://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/02/28/new-analysis-of-deaths-at-work/
http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/02/28/new-analysis-of-deaths-at-work/#commentsSat, 28 Feb 2015 00:01:52 +0000http://safetyatworkblog.com/?p=69703More…]]>Barry Naismith has followed up his first report into WorkSafe with a second that analyses the workplace deaths in Victoria since 1985.

One of the attractions of Naismith’s analyses is that he considers the broader context to the data. His first report looked at WorkSafe Victoria’s actions and policies in relation to the executive and board complexion. In this report he looks at the frequency of deaths with WorkSafe campaigns and enforcement response.

The analysis may not have the authority of a fully-funded research program from an academic institution but the level of detail he has collected from official sources is impressive, and in the absence of any other analysis, Naismith’s work deserves serious attention.

Tagged: Barry Naismith, workplace deaths, WorkSafe, worksafe victoria]]>http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/02/28/new-analysis-of-deaths-at-work/feed/3widnes99Cover of Deaths at Work 2014Master guide or handbookhttp://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/02/25/master-guide-or-handbook/
http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/02/25/master-guide-or-handbook/#commentsTue, 24 Feb 2015 21:00:48 +0000http://safetyatworkblog.com/?p=67884More…]]>In 2012, SafetyAtWorkBlog reviewed the first edition of the Australian Master Work Health and Safety Guide. CCH Wolters Kluwer has released its second edition and, sadly, it repeats many of the criticisms in the 2012 review.

The title of Australian Master Work Health and Safety Guide (2nd ed) seems inaccurate if one considers a book with “master ” in its title to be a “masterwork”. This is not a masterwork and the publishers have emphasised to SafetyAtWorkBlog that the book was never intended to be. The book is intended to be a brief outline of the most important contemporary occupational health and safety (OHS) issues in Australia and to provide practical advice, checklists and templates. In fact, the word that should be focussed on in the title is “guide”.

The publishers advised that “master” is in the title to indicate it is part of its “Master Series“, a “brilliant” series described as

“Australia’s premium range of professional books, widely accepted as the leaders in their fields.”

SafetyAtWorkBlog looked at a couple of chapters to assess the quality of the content. As workplace bullying is such a contentious issue. the Bullying and Violence chapter was a focus. There were a surprising number of omissions in this chapter.

Omissions

Throughout the book Work Health and Safety (WHS) was referenced, understandably for a nationally published book, but the State of Victoria has not implemented WHS laws in its jurisdiction. Victoria continues to operate under OHS laws established, originally, in 1985. It is true that the differences between the two legislations are not large, but the gap has widened in relation to workplace bullying. Victoria applies its own definition of workplace bullying:

“Workplace bullying is characterised by persistent and repeated negative behaviour directed at an employee that creates a risk to health and safety.” (page 2)

“… repeated and unreasonable behaviour directed towards a worker or a group of workers that creates a risk to health and safety.” (page 4)

The Victorian variation, from 2012, is not mentioned in the Bullying and Violence chapter of the Master Guide. Nor, under the subheading “Guidance Materials”, is there any mention of Victoria’s 2012 “Guide for preventing and responding to workplace bullying“. The authors may have decided to totally ignore the existence of Victorian information on workplace bullying but, if so, this should have been noted somewhere in the chapter.

Also, it is hard to understand, when the major reference in the Bullying chapter is the Safe Work Australia (SWA) guide, that the authors discuss, at length, direct and indirect bullying when the SWA guide does not mention these criteria. If these criteria are valid then the source should have been quoted. It is difficult to avoid thinking the mention of direct and indirect bullying is a mistake or oversight.

Fair Work Commission

The recently acquired powers of the Fair Work Commission (FWC) on workplace bullying precedes the discussion on the WHS issues and harm prevention in the chapter, implying a higher priority to this particular legal framework. The startling lack of numbers of applicants to FWC over workplace bullying (discussed elsewhere in SafetyAtWorkBlog) is also not mentioned, even though the lack of the tidal wave of applications was evident in early 2014.

One of the most contentious issues in OHS management at the moment is the role of culture. Australian researcher David Borys, and others, has cast serious doubt on the significance given to safety culture but the chapter on Culture in this book makes no reference to this local research. Nor does it mention the following quote from Safe Work Australia’s 2013 topic paper “Clarifying Culture“:

“The construct of safety culture/climate has gained a large following in the literature and in industry. The construct is open for criticism and literature is beginning to emerge that sees the flaws in the construct, its commodification, and its instrumental application in industry. There are important warnings for those who are concerned about the future of work health and safety in Australia.”(page 20, emphasis added)

The chapter’s author, Sheetal Thakorial, of risk consultants, Greencap, acknowledges the origin of “safety culture” from inquiries into Chernobyl but then uses the Chernobyl nuclear incident as the only case study. The Chernobyl incident occurred almost thirty years ago and in Ukraine. Surely a more contemporary example was available, and a more relevant one to the Australian readership.

The Esso Longford disaster is an obvious choice, particularly, as the same publisher, CCH, had a bestselling book on the incident by Professor Andrew Hopkins. Hopkins has published at least three other books for CCH Wolters Kluwer that discuss safety culture including one specifically discussing the issue, “Safety, Culture and Risk – The Organisational Causes of Disasters“. None of Hopkins’ work is referenced in Thakorial’s chapter.

Surprisingly Hopkins’ work is also omitted from the chapter on “Oil and Gas”. Even the editor’s own contribution, the chapter on governance, mentions “just culture” but without any cross-reference to the culture chapter. These omissions are hard to understand. Why would a publishing company that has produced major OHS and risk management titles over decades NOT reference their own books and authors?

What has been included in this chapter is a discussion of Greencap’s own “six circles of safety improvement” model, as well as a Greencap safety culture survey template.

Mining

Readers should have recognised by now that there is a thread in this article over the omission of important safety information and research in a book discussing OHS in Australia to an Australian readership. The chapter on Mining could have been peppered with world-leading research into mine safety and risk management in that industry sector but instead it has around four footnote references. Nothing by Hopkins (See above) and no mention of the award-winning research work of Blewett and Shaw, Digging Deeper.

Stress and Fatigue

One could ask whether there any good chapters in this book. There are, but these chapters, mostly written by academic experts, only serve to emphasis the quality of the other chapters, discussed above.

Where the issues of Bullying and Violence share a chapter, the Stress and Fatigue chapter is broken into two parts. The first, Stress, is written by Chris Peterson, of Latrobe University, author of several books on the topic and former CCH author. Fatigue is written by academics Anne Pisarski and Rebecca Loudon, both have written on shiftwork and wellbeing. Both do not try to simplify issues to a checklist format and acknowledge the difficult of managing these hazards. Peterson does not sugar coat the challenge and reiterates the advice that echoes throughout OHS

“Most organisational responses to stress focus on secondary and tertiary [control approaches], rather than on the most effective approach to eliminate stressors, primary prevention.”(page 688)

If there was one lesson from all the OHS research it is to look for the organisational issues that affect work decisions. These will be very difficult to counter or vary but anything less is doing a disservice to one’s workers and the organisation’s bottom line.

There are other chapters of note and almost all chapters are of use and relevance to safety management, but they could have been so much better.

Summary

The breadth of topics covered by this book is very good, including information on court processes and basic information on Evaluations but the book suffers from inconsistency.

This article’s support of academic contributors in this book may seem to show a bias or, heaven forbid, snobbery but CCH’s Master Series was supposed to bring

“…together Australia’s leaders in safety and sets the standard.” (Preface)

The book fails to do the former consistently and might set “the standard” but one that is not as high as it could be.

It is understood that most of the publishing team at CCH Wolters Kluwer was not involved with the first edition so it may be understandable for the second edition to be, purely, an update but the format and the selection of contributors also needs reviewing. It is suggested that if the readers desire practical guidance such content could be integrated into its other publications which are clearly “hands on”, such as the Hands On Guide for Risk Management or the Hands On Guide: OHS Training Kit (to which this writer subscribes and contributed to in the dark past).

Ideally Work Health and Safety could have its own Hands On Guide, as it may have had in the past, in which the contributions from Greencap authors would suit, as long as the content is closely assessed. However, Portner Press’s Health and Safety Handbook, and ancillary support products, would be a solid competitor (this writer contributed to this publication also).

It may be appropriate to describe the majority of the above criticisms of the second edition of Australian Master Work Health and Safety Guide as relating to quality control but this is from an organisation with a long and often illustrious history of publishing important and authoritative OHS works. If asked to summarise this book in one word, it would have to be disappointment.

SafetyAtWorkBlog was provided with a review copy of the book by Wolters Kluwer

]]>http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/02/25/master-guide-or-handbook/feed/4widnes99cover of WS_Bullying_Guide_Web2-2Cover of Workplace Bullying Final ReportNew research on OHS business casehttp://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/02/24/new-research-on-ohs-business-case/
http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/02/24/new-research-on-ohs-business-case/#commentsMon, 23 Feb 2015 21:00:17 +0000http://safetyatworkblog.com/?p=67444More…]]>Safe Work Australia recently released its second research paper related to developing or communicating a business case for occupational health and safety (OHS). The paper has been authored by Sharron O’Neill and is called “The Business Case for Safe, Healthy and Productive Work – Implications for resource allocation: Procurement, Contracting and infrastructure decisions“. O’Neill’s paper clearly challenges the dominant thinking of OHS and costs.

O’Neill states that the quality of previous analyses of OHS business costs have been “fundamentally poor”, partly because

“Rather than strategically examining the cost-benefit to business of work health and safety, the typical ‘silo’-driven analysis produces a narrow focus on a very different concept; the cost-benefit to business of health and safety interventions. This has obscured much of the potential for improving organisational productivity and operational decision-making.” (page 4, link added)

The OHS profession and business regularly succumb to supporting an initiative or intervention that makes sense and is attractive and seems to provide improvement. However often (too often) these are distractions from the root cause, societal problem or structural challenge. These are attractive because making the workplace, and the world, safer is hard work and it takes time. Occupational health and safety is one of those areas of thought that, if we allow it, challenges to way we live, the way we earn our living and the way we treat others.

One other point on the cost of interventions, these are often discussed in terms of “return-on-investment” (ROI). ROI is rarely mentioned by O’Neill in her report, probably because it can be a distraction from the broader reforms that may be required.

O’Neill discusses the challenge of cost analysis and the distraction:

“Aside from the significant costs disregarded as ‘externalities’ and therefore deemed largely irrelevant, many of the costs and benefits to organisations are hidden. Others are consciously ignored because they are perceived as too difficult to quantify reliably or to tease out of aggregated cost categories. As a result, work health and safety decisions tend to rely on vastly incomplete financial data. This renders cost-benefit analyses partial and unreliable, and has a tendency to bias financial analyses against investment in work health and safety interventions.” (page 4, emphasis added)

O’Neill succeeds in keeping her research on-topic but at the same time acknowledging the existence and influence of other business cost analyses.

O’Neill’s report summarises her findings as:

“The business case for work health and safety is generally misunderstood and poorly analysed;

The legal requirements for work health and safety provide a clear business case for investment;

The limitations of financial cost-benefit analysis make it inappropriate for informing decisions as to whether or not to invest in controlling risks to the health and safety of workers, however;

Financial (cost) analyses are likely to be useful for highlighting the most obvious and measurable work health and safety cost implications of operational and financing decisions – although to avoid misinterpretation must be accompanied by a caveat that recognises the incompleteness of estimated financial benefits. To this end, detailed research that can provide industry with guides to ratios of visible to hidden costs for various injury and illness outcomes are likely to be useful); and

OHS regulators and professions should pay particular note to point 2. There is no need to undertake a cost-benefit analysis of OHS as legislators decades ago determined that providing safety and health to the source of labour was morally right. To reinforce this morality, a system of penalties was applied to those employers who forgot or challenged this morality. The argy-bargy about workplace health and safety since then is all about finding ways to accommodate the morality of OHS with the capitalist, economic roots of production.

The report recognises that business leaders need to understand the cost of WHS interventions, but ‘cost-benefit’ has a very specific meaning in business; a meaning that O’Neill argues is inappropriate in a safety context. Instead, O’Neill says a more appropriate emphasis is ‘cost-effectiveness’ with effectiveness measured not in dollars but in the extent to which an intervention could be expected to eliminate, or minimise, a risk of harm. (see recommendation 5)

One of the core elements of determining whether a work activity is being conducted safely “as fair as is reasonably practicable” is cost, even though it is supposed to be the last consideration. It is perhaps this context that provides O’Neill’s report with the most influence.

Insurance

O’Neill touches on the issue of insurance against OHS penalties, an issue discussed several times in this blog, as it is intended as a cost avoidance mechanism. She supports the interpretation of Tooma and others on the issue:

“Despite calls to make such insurance policies illegal, there is little indication of change to the WHS Act at this time. However, legal experts have concluded that in the event of work health and safety prosecution, persons insured against work health and safety penalties may receive higher penalties than uninsured persons”.

They further warn that the availability of insurance cover is likely to force Courts and regulators to fix their attention more directly on company officers and to apply more extreme remedies, including custodial sentences.” (page 16)

Criticism

Not everyone has been supportive of O’Neill’s research. Rob Long posted an article about the report criticising two of the research’s funders rather than discussing the content of the report. Long’s criticism of the Safety Institute of Australia (SIA) is misplaced as the SIA appears to have had no role in this research other than funding. CPA Australia was also a co-funder but absent from his criticism.

Long cites the (broader research project) objective of developing lead and lag indicators as outlined by Safe Work Australia in the report and asks, “How will this project develop these quantitative outcomes?” This is a reasonable question if the report is expected to stand alone. However, a review of O’Neill’s Macquarie University staff webpage reveals two broader, connected co-funded projects. The first seeks to understand the Role of Accounting in WHS and the second to Develop and Test WHS Indicators.

The business case report is just one of the four discussion papers produced within the first project that look at different ways in which accounting and WHS practice interact (two prior papers are available HERE and one forthcoming). Together, the outcomes of the first project are helping inform the development of indicators in the second project.

Long’s approach to the psychology of risk has been invaluable to the OHS profession in Australia and could have provided a very useful analysis of O’Neill’s work but he chose a different focus.

Organisational Risk

O’Neill’s report does discuss issues of risk and its perception. She refers to some useful 2001 research from New Zealand on organisational types and risk perceptions:

“…researchers determined that organisations could be divided into three categories: inactive, reactive and proactive organisations.

Inactive organisations regarded both the benefits and costs of compliance as low, because they perceived their organisational risk to be low, and so perceived work health and safety with less importance and adopted a short-term, non-systematic compliance approach.

Reactive organisations perceived costs to be high relative to benefits of compliance and regarded costs as driven more by legal concerns than by actual safety. They viewed safety compliance as excessive and a hindrance to their competitiveness.

Proactive organisations perceived safety costs as an investment. They were more concerned with production disruptions and harm to employees than non-compliance costs and adopted a proactive approach to safety management that entailed high management commitment, employee participation, integration into business decisions and strong employee knowledge of work health and safety matters.” (page 23)

Research in this area has evolved since 2001 (some of it involving Rob Long) but the three organisational types and their approaches to safety risks and compliance continue to be relevant and are useful categories against which OHS professionals can assess their clients or employers.

“Failure costs refer to those direct and indirect costs that result from an organisation’s failure to ensure work health and safety.” (page 25)

This approach is one that many OHS professionals have struggled to collate because of the difficulty in accessing the relevant data but also, partly, because such analysis has traditionally be seen as outside the OHS professional’s domain.

Big Picture Costs

One omission from the current research report is a graph (page 8) that O’Neill has used before, that illustrates who it is that carries the costs of workplace injuries. It is a ratio that provides an important perspective on OHS and its social role. When one discusses the cost of workplace safety, one should also always consider the cost burden.

This graph, based on Safe Work Australia data shows that the discussion on business costs, the employer burden, relates to only around 5% of the total economic cost of injuries.

Productivity

O’Neill’s report should be seriously considered in the upcoming inquiry into workplace relations by the Productivity Commission. O’Neill lists indirect remediation costs of workplace injuries as decreasing productivity through:

“issues of presenteeism and absenteeism,

mental distress and issues of moral culpability,

reduced workplace morale, culture and engagement,

loss of human capital, skills and corporate memory,

reduced innovation potential …” (page 28)

O’Neill’s report clearly touches on many important areas of occupational health and safety management by focusing on the theme of cost. Her report is a fresh perspective on the issue that has been a source of confusion between OHS professionals, risk managers, accountants and financial officers. It goes some way to bridging the conceptual and linguistic barriers between the morality of OHS and the communication of OHS to those who can often most influence a company’s values and make workers safe.

]]>http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/02/24/new-research-on-ohs-business-case/feed/1widnes99cover of business-case-for-safe-healthy-productive-workEconomic Cost 2013Will workers be safer through an expansion of Comcare?http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/02/23/will-workers-be-safer-from-an-expansion-of-comcare/
http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/02/23/will-workers-be-safer-from-an-expansion-of-comcare/#commentsMon, 23 Feb 2015 03:29:55 +0000http://safetyatworkblog.com/?p=67770More…]]>At a recent breakfast seminar, Steve Bell of Herbert Smith Freehills mentioned that a Bill is with the Australian Senate that will open up the Comcare scheme to Australian businesses through the removal of the national competition test. This move has been flagged for some time with several lawyers expressing reservations. Bell mentioned this to the audience of OHS professionals as the law changes could present a substantial change to their operational knowledge base. The Bill is part of a larger debate on OHS.

“The proposed changes to Comcare will not only throw state and territory-based workers’ compensation schemes into fiscal chaos, but will also see injured workers left out in the cold,” ALA National President Geraldine Collins said.

“If this legislation is passed, employers may move their workers into the Comcare scheme, thus leaving huge holes of unfunded liability in state schemes which is likely to result in state-based premiums soaring.”

“Opening up the Comcare scheme will be disastrous for workers. Comcare has no meaningful access to common law damages for injuries caused by the negligence of an employer. The scheme is burdensome, paternalistic, and bureaucratic for workers and employers. Its design means premiums have to go up unless benefits are slashed ,” Ms Collins said.

“Comcare also has no meaningful workplace health and safety regime. Work environments will develop where lives are lost and permanently damaged with little oversight and enforcement of workplace health and safety. It is a fundamentally flawed minimalist scheme. Migration en masse will strike at the heart of the financial stability of state schemes, which are mostly running fairly,” Ms Collins said.”

(The ALA’s submission to the Federal Government on this issue is available HERE)

The ALA listed three major changes the Bill may present:

“Any corporation which employs staff in more than one state will be able to apply for a Comcare licence, meaning that the employer can migrate out of the relevant state or territory workers’ compensation scheme.

Workers injured while on a recess break outside of their physical place of employment will receive nothing.

Workers who are injured below a threshold of 10% whole person impairment will be unable to sue their employer for negligence. As a result, workers’ safety will be threatened.”

Several years ago the Federal Government stated its intention to harmonise workers’ compensation after occupational health and safety. The political impediments to the OHS process were identified early and very little action seems to have occurred on workers’ compensation since the initial workshops in March 2010. It could be argued that the expansion of the Comcare scheme is a direct result of the false start on workers’ compensation harmonisation.

“Under this option [status quo], work health and safety obligations will not be the same for employees working in the one corporation and employees will need to be aware of their responsibilities and obligations under the laws of each jurisdiction they work in. Hence, this option will not address the issues of inequities in benefits or compliance costs associated with multiple workers’ compensation regimes and jurisdictional obligations for work health and safety. The majority of states and all territories have introduced harmonised WHS legislation; however national employers are still required to deal with the costs and complexity of transacting with up to eight different WHS regulators and regulatory regimes.” (Section 4.1.3, emphasis added)

The highlighted sentence is curious. The Australian government always had the option for a single OHS and workers’ compensation scheme but this would have involved the States relinquishing their role in this area and, potentially changes to the Constitution. The Government, as reflected in the terms of reference of the OHS harmonisation review, had decided that uniform laws, or a single OHS law, were not the way to proceed. Because the harmonised system did nothing to eliminate State jurisdictional obligations the “costs and complexity” were always going to occur.

The Bill does not only address the Comcare option. To truly understand the broad and potential impacts of the Bill (and the ideology behind it), it is worth spending a little bit of time reading some of the political discussion available in Hansard, particularly for Senate Estimates on 3 June 2014 where the following comments were made by Senator Abetz, in discussing injuries resulting from the “serious and wilful misconduct” of employees:

“People actually do and should take responsibility for their actions, and if somebody is shown to be seriously and wilfully engaged in misconduct one wonders why anybody else should be held responsible for it.”

“From a government policy point of view, people do need to take responsibility for their own actions, and wilful and serious misconduct does have consequences that will have flow-on impacts. Let’s make no mistake: every extra claim on a workers compensation policy increases premiums, increases the cost of employing people and, as a result, mitigates against employment opportunities in this country.“

The job creation argument appears again in justification of, apparently, a reduction in the OHS protections for workers. Similar arguments on economic health and business costs have appeared in the current debate over penalty rates.

But what Senator Abetz’s comment reveals is an apparent inability to go beyond the financial in his analysis. He may achieve increased respect if he were to consider the safety of workers overtly in his statements. Imagine how different he would appear, and perhaps government policy would be, if the quote above had addition text:

“Let’s make no mistake: every injury or illness a worker suffers, every extra claim on a workers compensation policy increases premiums, increases the cost of employing people and, as a result, mitigates against employment opportunities in this country.” (added words in Bold)

The debates over the Bill in the Australian Senate should include this question: Will Australian workers be safer and healthier under the amendments proposed? It is a question that we should also be asking of our own local Senators and Members of Parliament.

OHS professionals should also be asking whether they understand the consequences of the Bill. The mention of the Bill at the recent breakfast seminar is a positive step but the professionals, and the profession itself, needs to now educate itself, and quickly, on the potential impacts. If only there was someone lobbying the Australian Government on behalf of worker safety and OHS? Trade unions should not be expected to do everything.

]]>http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/02/23/will-workers-be-safer-from-an-expansion-of-comcare/feed/4widnes99The SIA identifies four big issues for it in 2015http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/02/23/the-sia-identifies-four-big-issues-for-it-in-2015/
http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/02/23/the-sia-identifies-four-big-issues-for-it-in-2015/#commentsSun, 22 Feb 2015 21:00:02 +0000http://safetyatworkblog.com/?p=67151More…]]>The Safety Institute of Australia‘s (SIA) CEO David Clarke revealed his four big issues for the SIA at a recent breakfast function in Melbourne.

Policy Agenda

Clarke stated that he had instigated the creation of a National Policy Agenda for the SIA – a first for the over 60-year-old registered charity. Clarke emphasised that the SIA needed to understand the language of government, employers and unions as it relates to safety. The significance of the agenda was reinforced by Clarke who said that without such a strategy, the SIA would struggle for relevance.

Certification

Another priority was the certification of the occupational health and safety (OHS) profession in Australia. Clarke admitted that this was a controversial move but sees the establishment of a “licence to operate” as vital to increasing the status of the profession. SafetyAtWorkBlog wrote about the certification process, as it stood, last year and more on the issue is available at the SIA website.

Events/Conferences

The SIA will be redesigning its events process and strategy to emphasise the importance of State branches, networking events and discussion groups. A major plank will be to be more involved with the development and operation of conferences. The significance of SIA conferences has declined markedly over the last five years and may be facing some competition in the area if, as rumoured, the NSCA Foundation resurrects the FutureSafe conferences (last attempted in 2004).

In relation to conferences, the SIA’s records show that the conference in the 2013/14 financial year raised only $189,953, less than half of the previous year ($588,256). The records also show that these events are running at a loss. Perhaps OHS conferences are not the cash cows that some have been in the past.

[Edit/Update 26/2/15, I have been advised that the NSCA Foundation is the new name of the National Safety Council of Australia since Wesfarmers purchased the NSCA training and services “brand”. The member services, the magazine, events and any conferences are the responsibility of the NSCA Foundation. The Foundation has advised that it cannot access any funds from Wesfarmers as the Foundation is not related to Wesfarmers (even though the Charities register listing of NSCA Foundation includes a financial statement from Wesfarmers, with an explanatory of the Foundation’s “creation”). NSCA Foundation members are able to access any of the NSCA (Wesfarmers) services or products at discounted rates. So a dotted line, perhaps a legacy dotted line, remains.]

SIA Endorsement of Training

SIA’s David Clarke’s last big issue for 2015 was his statement that vocational training courses will be endorsed by the SIA. This seems a remarkable move given that for many years some of the executives in the SIA have displayed what some have taken as a disdain for the vocational education sector by focussing almost entirely on the tertiary education sector.

Clark says that he has been told that there is a massive problem with the quality of OHS training in Australia both in the vocational and private sector. He denied that the endorsement process is an empire-building or money-making exercise. But what does not seem to have been considered is whether the endorsement of courses by the SIA is the best way to address this “massive problem”.

Concerns over the broad vocational training sector have existed for some time but whether any analysis of the OHS/WHS sector has been undertaken is unclear. The SIA is an advocate of evidence-based decision- and policy-making and may need to provide more evidence than just anecdotes to justify the endorsement program. It can also be argued that the SIA would have a greater effect on the sector by participating in this governmental process rather than adding another level of complexity.

It is also unlikely that, given the attitude of the SIA to vocational and private training in the past, any training organisation or body would even open the door to a discussion with them. It is hard to see how this initiative provides benefits to the SIA members.

Perhaps the best that can be said about the Safety Institute of Australia is that it continues to try. The decline in finances and status over the last few years has been largely of its own making through ridiculous infighting, law suits, accusations of financial fraud, ethics hearings, and member suspensions. It has restructured its operations and its reporting methods but, largely, members have seen no positive change.

At the moment, the SIA’s health problems are in remission but the cure still seems far away. Many of the current changes suggested by David Clarke have potential but whether they are enough to withstand the changing landscape of the OHS profession might be beyond the SIA.

]]>http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/02/23/the-sia-identifies-four-big-issues-for-it-in-2015/feed/8widnes99WorkSafe Victoria’s Len Neist addresses safety profession breakfasthttp://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/02/21/worksafe-victorias-len-neist-addresses-safety-profession-breakfast/
http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/02/21/worksafe-victorias-len-neist-addresses-safety-profession-breakfast/#commentsSat, 21 Feb 2015 04:35:05 +0000http://safetyatworkblog.com/?p=67123More…]]>Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF), in its Australian partners and as a firm, has been prominent in occupational health and safety (OHS) matters, even though the organisation is “on the nose” with much of the trade union movement. This week HSF conducted a breakfast for the Safety Institute of Australia (SIA) in Melbourne, the first in a couple of years after an alleged falling out with the SIA. The presentations did not sparkle as some have in previous years.

The most anticipated presentation was from Len Neist, an executive director of WorkSafe Victoria. Neist outlined the aims of the organisation but much of this was familiar. He reiterated the obligations on WorkSafe from the various legislation and pledged to focus on prevention.

Neist is not beyond executive jargon (“risk tolerability framework” ?) and stated one of his aims was to “incentivise compliance and improvement”. One can argue that compliance should require no encouragement only enforcement. Why provide incentives to businesses for what is their legislative and moral duty?

He stated that he has been meeting with boards and directors to have them think more about risk management and safety. He acknowledges that some are welcoming but that he was surprised that some wondered why he was there and responded belligerently. Clearly the level of corporate maturity on OHS that some professionals see in their own companies is not widespread.

This is somewhat different from an earlier WorkSafe attempt at executive communication – the Focus 100 program. There are many lessons from this attempt well over a decade ago whereby WorkSafe executives spoke with the executives of those companies and organisations that had the highest level of workers compensation premiums. It failed in its second year as the Focus 100 became a league table of performance (a form of incentivisation) and the movement in rankings from Year One generated disharmony.

Also, it should be noted that this was also around the time of serious consideration of industrial manslaughter laws in Victoria that generated a “Code Brown” in the C-Suites.

Neist spoke about the need to develop a risk-based enforcement strategy for WorkSafe, as if this was new. He acknowledged that part of the reason for such a strategy is to be able to achieve aims and targets with a limited level of resources. This has always seemed to be the case in Victoria and is an acceptance by WorkSafe and the OHS community that the OHS/WHS inspectorate will always be under-resourced.

Oddly the recently announced review of WorkSafe by James Mackenzie was not mentioned. This omission is significant given that the review is set to

“identify opportunities to optimise the effectiveness, efficiency and value of these organisations to the Victorian community”.

This review would surely include analysis of inspectorate resources productivity and effectiveness.

Neist stated that

“… physical presence is the best way for WorkSafe, as a regulator, to get prevention happening.”

Psychosocial issues were mentioned but workplace bullying was not, probably because a risk-based strategy with limited resources would target higher-risk industries such as construction.

SafetyAtWorkBlog asked Len Neist whether WorkSafe will be seeking to integrate its bullying guidance, with its different definition, with the national guide. He responded that he is now attending the Heads of Workplace Safety Authority (HWSA) meetings, that workplace bullying uniformity is on HWSA’s agenda and that he is discussing the bullying issues with WHS regulators in other States. (SafetyAtWorkBlog has been advised that the national guidance on workplace bullying is to be reviewed this year.)

Neist’s presentation seemed lacklustre but this was partly because many in the audience could remember the large level of detail that former WorkSafe speakers, such as JohnMerritt, provided at these breakfasts. One feature of former presentations was a progress chart of prosecutions and a discussion of a prosecution strategy. Prosecutions was another issue that was not mentioned by Neist, even though he emphasised the importance of a solid database in developing a risk-based strategy.

That WorkSafe was willing to engage with the OHS profession in this way was admirable and it should be more frequent. However, WorkSafe executives have been addressing this sector in this way for well over a decade and the organisation should be sufficiently aware of the issues of interest to this profession to provide a more tailored and meatier presentation that engages and stimulates the profession. Plenty of information was presented at the SIA/Freehills breakfast but there was little inspiration.

Tagged: Len Neist, Victoria, WorkSafe, worksafe victoria]]>http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/02/21/worksafe-victorias-len-neist-addresses-safety-profession-breakfast/feed/0widnes99Australia’s 20 Best Business blogshttp://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/02/17/australias-20-best-business-blogs/
http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/02/17/australias-20-best-business-blogs/#commentsTue, 17 Feb 2015 03:25:49 +0000http://safetyatworkblog.com/?p=66260]]>SafetyAtWorkBlog is proud to have been listed as one of Australia’s Best Business Blogs by business resource website SmartCompany.]]>http://safetyatworkblog.com/2015/02/17/australias-20-best-business-blogs/feed/1widnes99image